Ch.1
Falling. Three stories. Five, six, seven until... splat! With a sickening thud, she crashes onto a car below her, her neck and ribs, cracking. She's alive for only a couple of minutes and soon everything fades to black as she listens to the car alarm go off.
She lay in bed, remembering a friend. She rubbed at her red eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but she couldn't.
"Don't say goodbye."
"But you're leaving me. What should I say?"
"Say... see you soon."
The conversation echoed in her head until she was lulled asleep by the memories and the sound of a car alarm going off in the distance.
Detective Jade West marched into the lobby of the LAPD precinct with a scowl on her face. As much as she had tried to make herself feel better last night, she still felt horrible. Danny was gone. Transferred to Narcotics. The many horrible things they'd seen finally broke him and he decided three days ago that his time at Sex Crimes was up.
"We missed your ugly mug last night," Detective Andre Harris said when he saw her cruise into the room.
"I was sick."
"Yeah, real sick."
"Sick in love," Robbie Shapiro, another detective added, laughing. He stopped when Jade gave him one of her signature death glares.
"Robbie, shut up."
Andre suddenly felt for his friend. "Yeah, Robbie, shut up." He lightly whacked, the now confused Robbie on the head with a folder.
"But-but!"
Jade walked over to the coffee pot and poured some into a Styrofoam cup for herself. She brought it to her lips and took a sip before spitting it back into the cup.
"Augh! Who made this coffee?"
"I did," said an unfamiliar voice.
She whipped her head around to see a tan woman, probably Hispanic, standing at Beck's old desk. She had a bubbly smile on her pretty face and her brown eyes glowed with excitement.
Who the fuck is ever excited to be at work on a Monday?
The girl frowned. "Do you not like it?"
"It tastes like shit," Jade spat, tossing the cup and its entire contents into the nearby bin.
"HI everyone!"
Jade cringed at the annoyingly chipper voice of the detective who had just walked in. That's right. Cat was happy to be at work everyday. On a normal day, Jade wouldn't be bothered by Cat. In fact she was like a small puppy that she took care of and annoyed her on occasion, but today, she just wasn't having it.
"Cat, can you keep it down? It's still early."
"Oh. I'm sorry," the red head spoke in a loud whisper. "Do you feel better today, Jade?"
"Yeah," she put on a fake half smile. "Sure. So what happened while I was gone? You managed to handle even with my disappearance, right?"
"There was a murder on 81st street," the mysterious Latina replied. "The victim was thrown out of her apartment window and fell five stories before landing on a car on the street below. We were called when they found out she had no underwear."
Jade narrowed her eyes. "And who, exactly, are you?"
"Jade!" Sikowitz, said, slapping her on the back. "Good to see you've made a fast recovery. This is Detective Tori Vega." The way he emphasized the detective title and the way this so called "Tori" was smiling, made her connect all the dots.
"Wait, you don't mean...?"
"Yup, Tori's your new partner. And you can get to know her when you work this case. I'm making you two the lead investigators for this one."
Jade felt like throwing up. Sure, Danny quit SVU three days ago, but he'd only been gone for one. The department couldn't just replace him like that. And with a rookie no less. She turned to her new "partner and stared her down until that big smile of hers faded uncomfortably.
"Should we go to the crime scene now?" She asked, trying to alleviate the obvious tension.
"Yeah," Jade answered, slowly. "Let's do that." She turned to face the rest of the squad. "What was the victim's name?"
"Monica Winters," Andre answered, feeling a little uneasy as well.
"Have you alerted her family?"
"We haven't found them yet."
"Well, you take Cat and go and do that. Robbie, I heard you were in court today for the Ferris case?"
"Uh, yeah. I should probably get to that now."
The detectives cleared the room and Jade turned back to Tori.
"Well, Vega? What're you waiting for?"
"So were you sick or something?"
"Or something?'
"What was it?"
Jade didn't answer, but that the didn't stop the other girl from continuing to talk.
"I once got the flu when I was assigned to work on a drug bust back when I was in Narcotics. It was awful, but you know what helped? Honey. It's weird I know. Have you ever tried any natural remedies."
"Do you ever stop talking?" Jade snapped.
Tori was about to say something, but decided against it and walked silently with Jade to the parking lot.
"We're taking my car, so I drive."
"I-"
"Is this going to be a problem?" Jade asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, not at all."
The drive was quiet. Too quiet and it was eating at Tori, she finally decided to open her mouth.
"Can I drive on the way back?"
"Do you even have a license?"
"Come on Jade, You're not that much older than I am.
Jade stopped the car in moving traffic. "It's Detective West," she said, not facing her."
Tori didn't know whether to be grateful or scared. She decided on grateful because if she had seen the look on Jade's face, she would have probably peed her pants.
CSU was already going over the entire apartment when Jade and Tori arrived. It wasn't a very big place, but it did have a lot of light thanks to the giant whole in the window. Jade and Tori slapped on gloves and looked for a few clues themselves. After a bit of digging, Tori spoke up.
"Found something."
"What is it?"
"An address book."
Jade flipped through it. Inside were the names of everyone Monica knew and the names of all their possible suspects.
"Did I do good?" Tori asked.
"Yeah," she said.
Tori beamed.
"Alright, alright. Keep looking."
The address book, it seemed, was the only thing they were going to get out of the crime scene.
Jade decided to check Monica's messages.
"Hello, this is Monica. Please leave a message."
"You have no new messages."
This woman was dead. It had been at least eighteen hours and no one was calling to find out where she was. She had the address book full of names and not even one call. Jade tried to imagine what that would be like. To disappear and then have no one care about what happened. She pushed the button again
"Hello, this is Monica. Please leave a message."
"You have no new..."
"Come on," she said to Tori.
"What're we doing now?"
"Asking questions." And with that, they walked down the stairs and out of the apartment.
"Well, I heard some loud noises and then the crunch of something falling hard," said a chubby, brown haired woman in her forties to Tori. "It was when the car alarms went off that I knew something was up."
"And you didn't look out of your window?"
The woman snorted. "Yeah, so he could see me and kill me too."
Tori sighed. She and Jade had been questioning for a while and so far no one had anything. Jade. She hated her. Tori knew. At first she was excited to have this job. She'd been wanting the promotion for months, but how can you work efficiently when you "partner" can't stand to hear your voice or the sight of you?
"Excuse me, Detective?"
Tori turned to face a couple holding their dry cleaning while the other woman walked away.
"Yes?"
"Are you all still investigating the scene where that woman died?" the man asked.
"Why? Do you know something?"
"Uh, no," the woman answered this time. "We're on the list for her apartment. We were just wondering how long it would take for us to get the place."
Tori was shocked at how blunt these people were at unconcern for the loss of a human life. All they cared about was getting her apartment?
She felt a body, brush past her. Jade.
"Were you two looking to rent this place?" she asked the couple.
They nodded, smiling hopefully.
"Hi, I'm the real estate agent." She pulled out a note pad and crossed something off. "Yeah, you're off the list."
The two walked back to Jade's car, leaving the couple on the sidewalk with their mouths hanging open.
Andre and Cat were back at the precinct before Jade and Tori.
"What do you got?" Jade asked as she walked in.
"Nothing," Andre sighed.
"Our victim had nobody," Cat pouted. "Isn't that just sad."
"I know, what an awful way to die." She walked over to the coffee pot, before remembering and grabbing a red stirring stick to fidget with.
"That's fresh pot," Tori said, but Jade ignored her.
"We found this at the crime scene." She took out the brown leather address book and tossed it at Andre. "Maybe we'll find someone in there who wants her."
Tori yawned, suddenly aware at how late it was.
"It's getting late," she said.
Everyone looked up at her. Jade's hands hovered over the phone on her desk.
"Maybe in Narcotics you left when the day was done, but in here, we stay as long as it takes."
Tori swallowed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
"But, you can go if you want." With that, she turned her back on Tori and made the call.
Andre stood up. "I'll walk you to your car."